Quitting smoking may be one of the greatest challenges one may face. Old habits die hard and most probably, the quote has been imagined by a guy who struggled to keep away from the immense pleasure of holding a sweet poisonous cigarette in his hands.
There are many ways in which we can compensate the daily dose of nicotine but none of the methods has proved to be enough to completely keep us away from the habit. The thing is, not necessarily nicotine keeps alive our addiction, but rather the very physical habit of lighting up a cigarette, inhaling the smoke and releasing it along with that fugitive thought. Smoking is a matter of power, personality, and rebelliousness. Well, this may sound like a foolish explanation but smokers know it better.
E-cigarettes are the next best thing when it comes to smoking. The battery-powered devices that heat a nicotine containing liquid create a mist that can be inhaled by the user. Although they don’t look like the original thing, they might offer considerable help with our nicotine addiction. A lot of controversy has fired up the minds and arguments of both experts and consumers. Some say that vaping is the same as tobacco smoking while others state that e-cigs are not as dangerous as tobacco is.
Furthermore, a study performed among high school students shows that those who have tried e-cigs could be more driven to also try classic tobacco.
On the other hand, researchers say that it’s a proven fact that e-cigs are 95% less harmful compared to classic tobacco and could be prescribed by the National Health Service in the future, to help smokers quit. Experts have gathered together data in a report for NHS England, revealing that vaping could be a “game changer” for making people quit cigarettes.
E-cigs are already extremely popular and are used by no less than 2.6 million adults in the UK only.
In defense of their already controversial findings, experts note that “At the moment, 80,000 people [in England] die every year as a result of cigarette smoking. If everybody who was smoking switched to e-cigarettes that would reduce to about 4,000 deaths a year. That’s the best estimate at the moment. It may well be much, much lower than that.”
However, public health representatives have raised their eyebrows over the new findings. There are two alternatives for the matter: either vaping is a safer alternative to smoking, or a pathway to addiction, as previous studies have revealed.
The only way we could find an answer to that is through trial and error but the risks are high. Maybe E-cigs should be prescribed to help smokers quit, but teenagers should be out of the question.
Image Source: ecvapour.com
